AVIATION: Crash Warning

For more than a year, U.S. airline
operators have been flying in a pilot's nightmare: the higher they
flew, the closer they came to a crash. Though domestic-airline revenues
rose to new records, the drag of faster-rising costs reduced profits to
the point where net operating income dropped to $101 million in 1956,
v. $123 million in 1955. Last March seven major airlines petitioned the
Civil Aeronautics Board for a 6% "emergency" fare inr crease pending
the outcome of a full-scale general fare investigation of their entire
rate structure. Last week, in...